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Born approximately 13 years before the start of the Second World War in Arundel, West Sussex, Harold Taylor started his working life as a plumber's mate. He went on to have various jobs including working for a war factory and a corn merchants, before joining the Merchant Navy in 1943. He then served for 8½ years in the police force before deciding to become a lighthouse keeper.
My second month on the island was to be spent at the north end, after serving my first at the south end. Later on in the day the farm tractor brought my gear along. Cecil had gone ashore and I was to make the third hand. Also arrived on the station was a couple of mechanics. One was Len Hawkins and the other, Clem Leggat, who was doing his first tour of duty with Trinity House (the lighthouse keepers' school). He had been a ship's engineer with the BI Steam Navigation, a company I had sailed with once, and we had some common acquaintances and ships that we both knew.
These additional men made it interesting as we could make a four at cards and often pursue games that could take us all. The crew was a much happier band of people than that of the south end.
There was more to do at the north end. First of all they had a compressed air fog signal with similar engines to Hartland Point, the only difference being that these were three cylinder engines and had the controlled starting. There were also small lighting engines for the charging of batteries for the radio beacon. These were single cylinder Crossley's. The main light however, was still paraffin vapour.
Although we still had to put up with wick lamps for the bedrooms, somewhere in time someone had fitted an electric light in the kitchen and living room, which were powered by the radio beacon batteries. I gather that this was an overhang from the war. Lighthouses did not function normally in those days, but signals would be sent out at specific times for the light to be exhibited to suit convoys and the movement of shipping.
With the electric lighthouses this was quite simple, but the paraffin ones were quite different, because the light had to be re-lit each time, taking about twenty minutes. Therefore it could not be done in an emergency. In some cases there was a dustbin type of arrangement that was lowered over the light, similar to the system adopted for an occulting light. However, here they had adopted the principal of installing an electric light, powered from the beacon batteries. It had remained unofficially in use.
Another little chore one became engaged in was the milking of the goat. Susie was a half wild goat, and would often wander off for days, and come back, smelling strongly of billy. She was almost dry, and one had a job to get a pint from her, but whatever we got was useful. She was a kid of Moira, the goat from the south end, who I believe was a pure bred beast.
During my stay there I discovered that Harry was a sick man, he was a boozer ashore, and was suffering from stomach trouble, but would not get treatment. I discovered that one of the frequent visitors to the island was a doctor, married to the owner of the island's sister. On one of my visits I made him acquainted with Harry's symptoms and he sent me back with some tablets for him, later visiting him and diagnosing a duodenal ulcer. I think Harry resigned next time ashore.
Despite Harry officially being in charge, Dave was really the 'king pin' on this station. He was a qualified carpenter. Many years later he also resigned and went into ship building, where he was engaged in the building of one of the replica vessels of old, possibly either the Nonsuch or the Golden Hind.
During one of the conversations that took place at the lighthouse when the observatory girls were visiting, it came up that I did a bit of athletics. Apparently they had had a person on the station before who had run the distance from the North Light to the Old light in a time of something like twenty one minutes, which I said did not seem fast. The outset of it was that I was to do it one day, but I would walk, as that was my sport.
The day was set and after lunch I left the kitchen, and the keepers telephoned the girls to say I was on my way. I had to climb the steps to the top of the island first before starting the route that would take me along the west side of the island. I made good time, but knew when I got to the Old Light that I was about a minute slower than the alleged record. My disappointment was more when I discovered that the effort had not been taken seriously and was not timed.
The three girls at the observatory were all named Barbara. Morrison was in charge and Whittaker was a research student, with Bissel being the cook. It was Fred who had told me of the bizarre habit they had of lacing people's drink.
The stations were not equipped with radiotelephone and all radio communication was done via the hotel, which contacted the Hartland Point coast guard station. There was, however, a telephone service on the island, which was maintained by the lighthouse keepers and paid for by the telephone authorities. It was really installed for emergency purposes and was an open line arrangement, so anyone could listen in on the conversation.
There were five phones; one at the hotel, at each lighthouse and one at an old coastguard lookout point, now used as a private residence. This was known as Tibbets, but more affectionately referred to as Spinky's, after the man who lived there. Should the telephone lines break down for any reason, it was the job of the keepers to go out and repair them. This could often happen after a big blow. It usually entailed two keepers setting out, one from each end, carrying a ladder and following the posts till the break was found.
The business of no R/T was annoying, especially for those at the south end. They were expected to listen out on their domestic set to scheduled calling times for the district tender, in case there was a message to the effect that the ship would call to land stores. This of course ran the battery down, with the result that economy was exercised and it prohibited us from using the set for pleasure other than for one hour a day at lunch time.
The origin of these sets is worth recording. The first set was donated to the Needles Lighthouse, by the Lymington Flower Society around 1928. In subsequent years various other lighthouses had sets donated to them.
By this time Trinity House became embarrassed by these generous gifts to their establishments, that they thought they should do something about it and provided the remaining lighthouses with a set. Having done so and taken on the provision of batteries, they considered that they had the right to dictate their use. They therefore had the wave band altered so that the ship to shore radio band could be picked up. In those days it was on the medium range about 5 metres below that of the usual domestic set.
When I arrived at the north end, I learned that they were having trouble with starting their Gardner engines, the first time I was taken to the engine room to familiarise myself with their equipment. That was why the mechanics had arrived on station. When I went through the motions to start the engines I used the process I had revised at Hartland. I was about to start the engine when I found the vapour the right colour, but was stopped by my guide, who considered I had not let the gasses get warm enough.
When we were ready according to his estimates, we had difficulty in getting the machines to fire satisfactorily. When we returned to the kitchen the matter was discussed and I expressed my view. Len Hawkins was prepared to agree with me, being a very experienced mechanic with Trinity. The following day we all went to the engine room and tried my theory and had no problem with the starting. Because they were using the old manuals for guidance and they were referring to wick burners and not blow lamps, they were baking the fuel past combustion point, and creating their own difficulty.
The fog engine compressors had a second purpose at this station; they provided the power for the winch and hauling the gear up from a visiting boat. The last day of my stay there, calamity happened. I am not quite sure of the sequence of events, but I think that I went to the engine room to start up the engines to provide air for the hoist.
The air storage tanks were kept at 100lbs pressure, so after starting the engines one had to blow them down to working pressure, which was about 40lbs. The valves were controlled by large capstans, which operated valves in the pipeline. It was not necessary, but some keepers shut these valves off by using a lever.
When I went to open the valve I could not shift it. I tried several methods, before eventually resorting to the lever. In doing so, the spindle of the valve snapped, which meant that having opened it, the valve could not be shut. This meant that the machine would have to be kept running until a spare could be sent out from London for the mechanics to fit.
Fortunately they were not preparing to come ashore the same day as myself, as they had either to await stores to complete their task or were due to go to the south end. When one examined the broken spindle, it could be seen that the thing had been damaged sometime before and had only been awaiting some poor unfortunate to complete the break, which was already about three quarters of the way through.
The ship carried out the relief, but the sea was too rough for the relief to be carried out on the landing stage at this end. It meant that we had to travel overland to the south end, carrying our gear to do the relief that way. This was going to present some problems as not only did I have my suitcase, but also had a cardboard box packed with 3 dozen gull eggs. I am not sure whether eggs were still on ration, but they were not plentiful.
One feature of the station, although more antique than unique, was the Austinlite charging panel for the beacon batteries. This was a peculiar board set up with studs, which controlled various resistances, thereby controlling its own performance to some degree. When the batteries became fully charged by voltage it cut out some of the stops. Its only problem was that you could not rely upon it. It would sometimes go berserk and the cutting out would be a bit random, or the motor would go up and down the board cutting out cells and then reconnecting them.
The ornithology notes for this period were interesting. It was my first encounter with Manx Shearwaters. I was going up from the south end to the pub, when these birds came flopping into me. At the time I thought they were guillemots. I was later to learn more about these interesting animals that only come this way to breed, not being seen again until they return the next breeding season. I was also introduced to gull egg collecting, which had been severely restricted during the war, as Mr Harman (the owner of the island) took advantage of the shortage of eggs to make money.
The keepers were forbidden to stray from the paths across the island, except for egg collecting and then they had to hand over something like 75% of what they collected.
Another story worth relating concerns the occupation of my time on Lundy. I discovered that there was the opportunity to work on the island, although they played on this situation and only offered 2/6d per hour.
I spent a lot of my spare time hoeing cabbage fields that were so dry and parched that I could not see my efforts would be worthwhile. The first day I had performed this task I went into the hotel kitchen to report my task completed, and was invited to sit down to a meal with the rest. This I thought to be very generous. I accepted this invitation on several days, until I drew my pay for the work carried out.
Being considerably less than I anticipated, I questioned the fact, whereupon it was pointed out that I had been deducted for meals that I had consumed at the hotel. I ceased to accept their 'generosity' after that.
Having carried out our relief from Lundy, I forgot to mention that whilst the relief was being carried out at the south end, the skipper of the boat, Captain Bennet, had to go ashore and reprimand the P.K. Jim Tilley. It appears that the morphine tablets had gone missing from the medical cabinet. I do not know if it was ever confirmed, but it was rumoured that Cotterel had had them. The chest was supposed to be kept locked, but it never was, and it was accessible to anyone who needed it.
Many years later all drugs were kept in a separate locked box within the medical chest, but then they went too far and even such things as Aspirins were locked away out of reach.
Cotterel was to make the headlines again later on two occasions, one with an attack on another keeper and again when he went missing and his skeleton was subsequently found.
Having arrived home for my leave after this first spell of rock station, I was entitled to two weeks leave, or ashore, which did not apply after one had done a spell at a shore station. I had also discovered that I was not entitled to be paid my fare to return to Swansea as, that being my base, I was expected to live there.
I had, however, received my fare home as the officer of the ship had used travel warrants for all going ashore, although only the ship's crew and the lightship men were entitled to it. This being the case, I applied for a transfer to a district closer to my home. This was to be Cowes on the Isle of Wight. My first posting from this depot was in the Channel Islands
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